The aim of the present study was to discuss the effect of surgery on the T-lymphocyte subsets of patients with breast cancer (BC) and investigate the association between peripheral blood αβ and γδ T-cell counts and the clinicopathological characteristics of BC. The CD3 + , CD4 + , CD8 + and γδ T-cell subsets in the peripheral blood of healthy volunteers and Patients with BC before and after surgery were determined using flow cytometry. The association between αβ and γδ T-cell counts in the peripheral blood and clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed by comparing the differences in the αβ and γδ T-cell counts in the peripheral blood of Patients with BC before and after surgery with those of healthy volunteers and combining with clinicopathological data. The CD3 + , CD4 + and γδ T-cell counts in the peripheral blood of Patients with BC were lower compared with those in healthy volunteers (P=0.0077, 0.0116 and 0.0003, respectively), whereas the number of CD8 + cells was higher (P=0.0241). The CD3 + , CD4 + and γδ T-cell counts and the CD4 + /CD8 + ratio after surgery were significantly higher compared with those before surgery (P=0.0109, 0.0031, 0.0165 and 0.018, respectively). There was no significant difference between the number of CD8 + cells before and after surgery (P=0.0053), but the number of CD8 + cells was higher in healthy volunteers compared with that in Patients with BC (P<0.05). Moreover, the CD3 + cell number was higher in patients with TNM stage II/III compared with those with TNM stage I disease (P=0.187 and 0.022, respectively), and the peripheral blood CD4 + /CD8 + ratio and number of γδ T cells were lower in stage III compared with stage I Patients with BC (P=0.0065 and 0.0176, respectively). Histological grading demonstrated that the CD4 + /CD8 + ratio and number of γδ T cells in patients with stage III BC were lower compared with those with stage I BC (P=0.02 and 0.0128, respectively). The γδ T-cell count in patients with luminal A and B subtypes was significantly higher compared with that in patients with basal-like subtype (P=0.004 and 0.0104, respectively). The CD3 + , CD4 + and γδ T-cell counts were significantly lower in patients with lymph node (LN) metastasis compared with those without LN metastasis, and the CD8 + cell number was lower in patients without LN metastasis compared with that in patients with >10 LN metastases (P=0.0086, 0.0000 and 0.00468, respectively). The CD8 + cell count in patients without LN metastasis was lower compared with that in patients with 4–9 and >10 LN metastases (P=0.0...